应用即兴18--Action! Transforming Executives through Improvised Theatre

The founder of StarMaker, Teresa Norton brings a lifetime of professional theatre experience and over thirty years living in Greater China to her coaching, training, and consulting of executives in how to inspire confidence, lead with authenticity, communicate with impact, and engage across cultures.

作为明星制作者的创始人，特蕾莎·诺顿带来了一生的专业戏剧经验和在大中华区30多年的生活，她指导、培训和咨询高管，如何激发自信、真实领导、有影响的沟通和参与跨文化。

Imagine having the courage to get up in front of a paying audience without a script and co-create stories in real time. In my view, this is precisely what business leaders do at work every day in meetings, during performance reviews, and in discussions with their own clients. In the late 1990s, I began to develop training programs in Hong Kong using tools I had gathered from a career in the theatre. Convincing human resource managers that executives could learn about communication from actors, theatre directors, and playwrights was not an easy sell.

想象一下，我有勇气在没有剧本的情况下站在付费观众面前，实时共同创作故事。在我看来，这正是企业领袖每天在参加会议、绩效评估和与客户讨论时所做的事情。20世纪90年代末，我开始使用我从戏剧生涯中收集到的工具，在香港发展培训课程。说服人力资源经理，让高管可以从演员、戏剧导演和剧作家那里了解交流并不容易推销。

In my pitches, referencing American actor and teacher Sanford Meisner’s techniques of “the reality of doing” helped enormously. I would point out that if “acting is living truthfully under an imaginary set of circumstances,” executives could be trained to “act” in ways that would better serve them under the real circumstances at work. Applying my experience as an actor, director, and playwright, I knew I could help executives prepare for their role of “Leader,” and for the past twenty-five years I have had the great privilege of helping them  perform in more emotionally intelligent, thought-provoking, and dynamic ways in the workplace.

在我的演讲中，提到美国演员和教师桑福德·迈斯纳的“现实行动”技术有了巨大的帮助。我要指出的是，如果“行动是在一套想象的环境下真实生活”，高管们可以接受培训，以在实际工作环境下更好地服务于他们的方式“行动”。运用我作为演员、导演和剧作家的经验，我知道我可以帮助高管们为他们的“领袖”这个角色做准备，在过去的25年里，我有幸帮助了他们在工作场所以更聪明、更发人深省和更有活力的方式表演。

Some of my coachees seek out my support independently, but in most cases I am approached by someone from a business Talent Development department to work with a manager on a communication-related issue. The general request is to develop their leadership skills, often with a more specific directive to focus on influencing stakeholders, presentation skills, demonstrating gravitas, engaging team members, or adapting their communication style to the audience.

我的一些同事独立寻求我的支持，但在大多数情况下，商业人才发展部门的人会找到我，与经理就沟通相关的问题合作。一般的要求是发展他们的领导能力，通常有更具体的指示，关注影响利益相关者、展示技能、展示庄重、吸引团队成员或调整他们的沟通方式以适应观众。

My bimonthly, ninety-minute sessions with my coachees mirror the relationship between a director and actor. We typically meet nine times to explore different strategies for overcoming their communication challenges using a variety of theatre techniques and activities. Some of the most valuable of these tools in my kit come from improv, allowing us to recreate real-life interactions that identify the gap between what feels most natural and what will be most effective when performing as a leader. And because improv exercises are basically games, they help create a nonthreatening coaching environment where my clients can practice new behaviors, and I can start and stop the activities to provide them with ongoing feedback.

我双月一次的90分钟的会议反映了导演和演员之间的关系。我们通常会见面九次，以探索不同的策略，以使用各种戏剧技术和活动来克服他们的沟通挑战。在我的工具包中，一些最有价值的工具来自即兴表演，这让我们能够重现现实生活中的互动，识别出感觉最自然的东西和作为领导者最有效的东西之间的差距。因为即兴表演练习基本上是游戏，它们有助于创建一个无威胁的教练环境，我的客户可以练习新的行为，我可以开始和停止活动，为他们提供持续的反馈。

FIGURE 8.1 Norton at work in Hong Kong.